


to sleep: perchance to dream

by blue000jay



Series: drabbles [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Look I Liked This One Monologue, Moments Before A Fight, References to Hamlet, References to Shakespeare, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue000jay/pseuds/blue000jay
Summary: To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,Three days leading to a fight, and Tommy thinks about death.(Tommy-centric, posted the day before 1.20.21, inspired by Hamlet's monologue about s*icide/death.)
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: drabbles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2103231
Comments: 10
Kudos: 122





	to sleep: perchance to dream

**Author's Note:**

> i read that one monologue from hamlet and went "yeah this is tommy rn" and then ran with it.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

* * *

Tommy stands at the precipice of a decision. Below him on one side is a churning sea full of angry sharks and monsters, krakens and cannibalistic mermaids pulled right from the storybooks he once read as a kid. On the other side of the glass is a meadow, flowers dotting the grass and bringing splashes of color into the green. It ripples in the sun. On one side, the water is a dark purple-blue, and on the other, the grass is bright, bright green.

Like everything else in this world, they remind him of Mellohi and Cat.

Dream’s left him a clear message. Tommy stands in the ruins of his house, holding a cold compass that shocks the skin of his palms, and stares in the direction the needle points. 

* * *

And by opposing end them?—To die,—to sleep,—

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to,—’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d.

* * *

To fight Dream almost certainly means death. As Tommy tears down the netherrack walls and throws buckets of water on fire, the steam hisses up and makes his face red and warm. He thinks about Dream and his netherite sword, the imposing mask, his stance as he fights and the way he dances across battlefields without touching the ground. To fight Dream is to threaten his last life, something he holds precious and tight to his chest. Fighting Dream means risking Tubbo’s life, since Tubbo was clearly invited to this challenge as well.

If he fights Dream, Tommy is probably going to die.

It doesn’t really scare him. Maybe a little bit it does-- 

* * *

To die,—to sleep;—

To sleep: perchance to dream:—ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

* * *

He should start apologizing to people. The people he stole from first, maybe. Maybe he should apologize to George for the (rightly accidental) fire that burnt half his mushroom house down. Maybe he should atone for the clear sins he’s committed.

Technoblade flits across his thoughts as he sits in the empty spider spawner room, and he shivers at the thought.

Technoblade, sitting by his side and showing him how to write his letters. Technoblade, teaching Tommy how to hold a sword. Technoblade, opening his blankets to Tommy. Technoblade, coming to their aid in Pogtopia.

Techno, hiding him from Dream.

“I should apologize to him,” he says out loud to no one, breath coming in hard, shuddering gasps as he sits in the hole in the wall that lets spiders spawn. “Fuck.”

What is he doing with these last few days of his life? Preparing? Stealing again? 

Apologizing? 

Who does he want to be in these days before his death?

* * *

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

* * *

Tommy visits Logsteadshire. 

He stares into the pit where Dream had finally blown the whole place to bits. He stares at the remains of Trnent, at the faded, echoed remains of his beach party. There had been so much pain here. So much pain. He has to grip the handle of his shiny new axe in order to soothe his shaking fingers, remembering raised hands poised to hit and a soft shoulder to cry on when it was all over. He’s lost so many things here-- armor, an ender chest, the last tiny shreds of his childhood. He’d nearly lost a friend here, and he can see Tubbo’s face now in the low light, screaming at him about the discs and ordering him to leave. A President, burdened by an office that was far, far above him. Far above anyone. Hell, it had been even too far for Wilbur to reach in the end.

Tommy stares out across the water that he used to wake up in, drowning, and breathes.

Something in him settles. He’d been through so much, and this is how it’s going to end. He thinks, yeah, alright. Life has fucking sucked lately, and there’s so much he doesn’t want to think about. He doesn’t want to think about little blackstone rooms and buttons and TNT. He wants to think about something else, so he turns and heads back into the portal.

* * *

But that the dread of something after death,—

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns,—puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

* * *

Tommy sits bolt upright in his bed, tears leaking from his eyes, hands shaking, and he reaches out with scrabbling fingers until his hands find the crossbow that had been gifted to him today.

The final day to prepare. And Connor had come to them-- Connor, who Tommy hadn’t really spoken to except to kidnap, Connor, who was working off a cold and looked mildly contagious still-- he handed over a crossbow and a pickaxe with Wilbur’s handwriting etched into the handles. Connor could not meet Tommy’s eyes as he did.

Tommy did his best not to cry when he thanked him.

Wilbur had called his crossbow _Chekhov's Gun_ , because of course he had. The pickaxe was Ghostbur’s, the handwriting a little less solid on the wood of the handle, but the crossbow…. that was Wilbur’s. From when he’d been alive. It’s a beautiful machine and Tommy clutches it to his chest (unloaded) as he sits in bed, recovering from a nightmare that he can’t even remember upon waking. The moon is high. It’s probably already tomorrow-- in less than twelve hours time, Tommy thinks he’s going to be dead.

He misses Wilbur. 

Ghostbur had talked about death so often that Tommy had almost become desensitized. He’d said there was no god, nothing there, just a black, empty void that made you oh-so-cold and bitter. He’d heard bits and pieces from more recently, about there being two others there, and Ghostbur disappearing for longer and longer stretches. He’s a ghost after all, a shell of his former self. He’s not anything like he once was.

Tommy sits and lets himself cry for his brother, and for himself. 

He doesn’t think he’ll come back as a ghost when he dies. He thinks maybe he’s scared of that.

* * *

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought;

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

* * *

Once, Tommy had stood at the edge of a thin walkway over lava and been told it wasn’t his time to die yet. Another, he had sat at the top of a tall tower and looked upon destruction and realized he was stronger than he thought. He had turned away both times, and he was stronger for it. He had been a coward and not taken the final leap, and it had cost him so, so much since then.

This time, Tommy stares death in the face head on. It’s smiling, masked, and wearing Netherite armor. Tubbo is behind him, armor framing his face and making him look properly righteous. They’d joked on the way here, not talking about their imminent fates (or at least Tommy’s) and Tommy had paused before they’d come the last few steps up to Dream.

“Hey,” he’d said, catching Tubbo’s hand. Tubbo had stopped, glancing back at him, potion in his other hand and already uncorking it to splash down on them both.

“Yeah?” Tubbo asked. Tommy had stared for a hard second, then gritted his teeth and pushed forward.

“Thank you,” he said. And then: “I’m sorry.”

Tubbo had smiled, and squeezed his fingers. 

“Let’s win this,” he’d said. 

They stare death in the face together, and Tommy does not lose the name of action this time. He fights.

~~He loses.~~

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! please make sure to leave a kudos if you did, and a comment would also be rlly appreciated :)


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